Dissapearing Act
by KittyCabaret
Summary: Spencer Reid is hiding something. Something that is consuming his entire being. How long before the team notices? After all, it can get hard to keep up appearances when you're slowly disapearing.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1- Cycle.

Author's note: I don't own Criminal Minds. This could be triggering for those with ED's or self-harm issues and or drug problems. Rated M accordingly.

His stomach was a black hole. It could never be filled. Until it was full of course, that sudden moment that came out of nowhere was the worst. Suddenly it would just stop. His head would dart up from the floor and the urge to run to the bathroom would come over him. It wasn't an urge so much as it was a desperate need brought on by the site before him. The terrifying site of the food wrappers littering the kitchen floor around him, the light from the open fridge was suddenly blinding. He would dart up, tripping on the food on the floor, it was impossible to get to the bathroom fast enough.

Reid fell to his knees before the toilet, swiftly inserting a long finger down his throat. It took three different times to get all of it out. After flushing, He curled into a ball on the bathroom floor, taking long deep breaths, trembling with each inhale and exhale. The soft rug in front of the toilet suddenly felt like the most comfortable place in the world. He clung to the cottony blue fluff that composed the rug, trying to pull himself together enough to get up.

The moment came, after a brief nap on the bathroom floor. Reid got up and rinsed the sour taste out of his mouth and returned to the kitchen, feeling more lucid than he had before, to assess the damage. He looked at the still open refrigerator, then down to the boxes and bowls on the floor. The last half of a leftover pizza, a container of microwave mac-n-cheese (eaten un microwaved) the whole bag of chocolates that he liked to keep in the fridge, there where apple cores and peach pits on the ground, a loaf of bread that he didn't even remember eating sat on the ground, one slice stuck in a tub of cream cheese along with countless other things. This was always the worst. Reid sighed, reaching into the cabinet for a trash bag. The smell was unbearable and he felt sick just touching the remnants of tonight's binge.

Once it was all collected in the bag, he tied it off and wiped off all of the stickiness on the floor. Exhausted, Spencer took the trash bag out to the dumpster and went back to his condo. The dirty feeling was taking over him now, and he quickly got into the shower, sliding to the floor and praying for it to go away. The tears didn't come anymore. The stopped flowing a long time ago, this was just life now. Binge, purge, restrict, shoot up, pass out, throw up more, occasionally drink, purge drinks, fall asleep, get up too quickly and feel dizzy, maybe pass out again. Somewhere in there, he would go catch serial killers and read multiple books a week.

The water was running cold as he ran his fingers over his exposed ribs. Reid carefully grabbed onto the little cave in the wall that was meant to hold soap and gently pulled himself up, feeling weak and shaky. The towel he wrapped himself in did nothing to stop the trembling. He frantically dug through his dresser drawers looking for his heaviest pajamas and a long sleeve shirt.

When he finally managed to get under his blankets, after swallowing a sleeping pill, Reid still felt a chill. When the sleeping pill finally took him, it wasn't as huge of a relief as he had been hoping for, but it got him through the night.

The morning came too soon, and it was cold. Winter time was the worst. Reid got up, started the coffee maker and went back to his room to get dressed for work. First, however, he had a date with the scale. He stepped on, then off again, then back on. Each time 135 showed up on the red digital display. Reid quickly did the math, this lead to a BMI of 17.8. Underweight. Reid stopped to look in the mirror, thinking about where things stuck out. He did a quick count of his ribs. This was an odd ritual. He turned around and looked over his shoulder. His spine was beginning to show. The long chestnut hair he had once been so proud of looked dull and lifeless. His cheeks where gaunt now, and any life and insatiable thirst for knowledge that had been in Reid's eyes before was now gone.

He put on his boxers and under shirt. Then a pair of corduroy pants. Those should keep him warmer than slacks. He pulled out a long sleeve button-up shirt and his favorite sweater vest. Next, two pairs of socks and his converse. Reid pulled his purple scarf and pea coat on before heading to the kitchen to put his black coffee in a travel mug. Spencer picked up his messenger bag and his keys and shut the door behind him.

As soon as he put the key in the ignition of his car, he cranked the heater up. The first few minutes when it pumped out cold air at him where always the worst, it's as if he wasn't cold enough already. Relief flooded through is body as it finally warmed up in the car. He almost felt as though he was at a normal body temperature. With almost no fat on his body, achieving a comfortable temperature was difficult.

He scanned his ID card in the door and walked into the office, smiling and politely greeting his co-workers. Nobody knew anything. Nobody could ever get any idea. Who could be more of a master deceiver than a profiler? Reid's legs felt shaky and unsteady and his desk seemed way too far away.

The pile of paperwork on his desk was massive. Just for once, could Morgan and Prentiss stop unloading all of their files on him? He had no desire what so ever to do any more paper work than he had to these days. Lately, his head felt cloudy and his hands shook a lot when he wrote out reports. Reid sat down and began sifting through the papers, with nothing but a burning desire to go home in his head. Prentiss sat on his desk, trying to chit-chat with him. He absently listened, smiling and nodding.

She finally, as she got up from her seat on his work space, asked if he'd like to go out to lunch with her and Garcia. Reid's mind raced and he thought of all of the horrible things that were out there, begging to be eaten, and of the way Garcia and Prentiss always wanted to eat out side for some reason. How would he get his dilaudid fix if he was out with Emily and Garcia? Before he could say no, the instinct to cover up the fact that anything was wrong forced a "yes" out of his lips.

"Alright, We're not sure where we're going yet, but we'll meet up outside Garcia's office at around noon" Emily smiled.

"Sounds great" Reid said, cracking another smile. He turned back to his paperwork, scolding himself on the inside for agreeing to eat, especially after the binge last night. But for a brief moment, he prided himself on deceiving Emily into thinking that he was a normal twenty-five-year-old who ate food several times a day, and didn't think much of it. He could keep up this illusion forever if he wanted, and oh how he wanted to.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2- Odd

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal minds/any of its characters. Warning: Rated M for possible Eating Disorder/Drug abuse/Self harm triggers (You know you spend too much time on PT when you put trigger warnings on EVERYTHING.)

Reid looked at his watch at least a thousand times before it finally struck two minutes until noon, when he got up, a little too quickly. He held onto the desk to steady himself until the room quit spinning. With careful steps, he made his way over to Garcia's office.

The door was propped open with a rock that Penelope had attached a pair of silly plastic eyeballs to and had given a painted pink pout with a paint marker. Emily was already in the office, waiting close to the door as Penelope rummaged around under the desk for her purse. He couldn't fight the next thought that came into his head. It was one of those evil thoughts that are brought on by days of starvation and the disease that was rotting his brain. Penelope had a revoltingly huge ass.

The still sweet part of his brain chastised him for thinking such a thing about someone as wonderful as Penelope. They left her dark office, Garcia's sky-high heels clicking on the ground. Why on Earth would she wear things like that? Women were ridiculous creatures. They each put an arm through his as they walked out the door. They always did this. He wasn't sure why, but girls loved him. Never in a sexual way, they just always wanted to be close to him, to be friends. Not that he minded, though he considered himself asexual. They both probably thought that he was gay and that they could just treat him like one of the girls.

Their touch used to make him nervous. In the summer months, about a year or so ago, He had been worried that when they held onto his arm, they would feel the obvious presence of fat and lack of muscle. Now he was afraid that they'd feel the bones and suspect something. But the layers of his coat would hopefully protect him from their prying hands.

It was a chilly afternoon and when they arrived at the cafeteria-like restaurant, Reid picked up a tray and began considering his options, letting Emily and Garcia go before him, giving him more time to think about the long line of food before him. Why was this so scary? It was impossible to rationalize.

He picked up one of the boxed salads Inspecting it as quickly as he could before putting it on his tray. Ignoring the dressings, he picked up a fruit cup, and to keep up appearances, a chocolate chip cookie. Even though things like that triggered binges. One cookie would lead him to want more, then at two AM he could be found at the nearest gas station, buying whatever junk food there was. All of these thoughts went through his head rapidly, the small voice in his head telling them to shut the hell up and let him get through this meal. His stomach was making the most evil noises and all he wanted was for that to shut up as well. Reid picked up a water bottle, along with a fork and paid quickly, Emily and Garcia were waiting for him just outside the line. "Shall we take our lunch au fresco?" Garcia suggested.

"Of course" Reid replied, smiling.

They went to one of the tables outside, Reid quickly stealing the sunniest spot for himself. The girls sat down across from him. His nose caught wind of the soups and sandwiches on their plates. It all smelled so amazing. Reid carefully opened the lid on his salad and began to pick at it with the fork. Moving things around, he chattered aimlessly, taking actual bites here and there. Chewing was always slow, always deliberate. He picked at the fruit cup, and took three bites out of the cookie. He noticed Emily giving him an odd look. "How conspicuous is this?" He thought sarcastically. Trying to relax a little, he took a few more bites of his salad, trying to keep up in conversation. Why did women talk about such stupid things? The current topic of discussion was Morgan's abs. Something about muscle…the excessive defined muscle that Morgan had was odd. It repelled him a bit. "What is it with me and criticizing everyone else's bodies? Its none of my business…" He thought.

He zoned out again, smiling and nodding, as was expected of him. He really had nothing to contribute to this conversation and let the girls chatter as they pleased. "You ready to go, Spence?" Emily asked.

"Yeah." Reid replied, getting up slowly. Garcia and Prentiss gathered their purses from the backs of their chairs and they began the short walk back to the BAU. They entered the building, and Reid, claiming to have to go talk to somebody, moved off to the bathroom.

"What's wrong with him?" Emily asked, turning to Penelope. "I really don't know, but you don't need to be a profiler to know that something is seriously bugging him." Garcia replied.

"Yeah he didn't seem to want to eat anything today" Emily pointed out.

In the bathroom, Reid positioned himself on his knees in front of the toilet, making sure the door was locked. If someone really had to go, there was another bathroom in the building. Cookies were a bitch to purge. He stuck his middle finger down his throat and braced himself. The first wave hit. It was the muddled green color of salad and fruit. The second wave was mostly coffee. He'd always figured everything would come out at once and he really wouldn't be able to tell what was what and when he had eaten it, but after a few years of this, he'd figured it all out. His thirst for knowledge had its limits. Never in his life was he ever concerned with knowing this much about his own vomit. All that came up next was bile. The first sordid deed was done.

Moving on to the next order of business, Spencer reached into his messenger bag, pulling out his syringe and the bottle of dilaudid he always kept handy He sat down against the wall of the bathroom, rolled up his sleeve, quickly found the vein and looked away as he injected himself. He cringed a little as he felt the needle leave his arm.

Finally, when he felt the dilaudid kick in, he got up once more, unlocked the bathroom door and walked to the break room, where he made himself a cup of coffee (loaded with sugar, to keep him awake)and returned to his desk.

Meanwhile, Prentiss and Garcia were telling JJ about their strange lunch experience with Reid. All vowed to stay vigilant.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3- Vigilance

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of it's characters. WARNING: Rated M for possible triggers for those with Eating Disorders, Self-Harm or Substance Abuse issues. And Language…I guess.

Why was every woman on his team suddenly looking over at him? Even that girl that Prentiss was training was looking at him. Oh how he hated her. She was disgusting, always making passes at him. All he wanted was for Seaver to go the hell away and let him survive another day in peace. He guessed that they all thought that he didn't know that they were looking at him. Well they all guessed wrong.

Finally, after turning in the last of the day's paperwork, Reid went home. He sighed at the empty fridge as he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher he filled up every morning. Cold water was supposed to help burn what little was left of the calories he had consumed that day, and it felt good in his stomach. It was one of the only things he could take without purging. Once he had finished the glass of water, he made himself a cup of tea, determined to sit down with a book and actually get some reading done.

Getting comfortable in his favorite arm chair was becoming increasingly difficult. He tried to lay out across it, his shoulders resting on one arm rest, his legs draped over the other. That jabbed into his shoulder bones. But if he sat up properly, it would dig into his tail bone. Really, he just couldn't win here. He resolved to go lay in his bed with the book, even though it would hurt his back and his pelvis to lay there for too long. "Is this really what I've been after all of this time?" He thought, pulling the blankets up over himself. He closed the book and deftly tossed it onto the floor.

His shoulder dug into the mattress. "I'm so sick of this shit" he thought. Feeling a sudden rage at himself, he decided then and there to make an attempt at self-recovery. He dug through every chapter on eating disorders in all of his psychology books. He mostly gathered that "Re-feeding" should be done gradually and that he should definitely quit weighing himself so much. For a while that night, he contemplated quitting dilaudid. "One problem at a time, doctor" he thought. He couldn't imagine quitting dilaudid though, it helped keep him thinner. He wanted to put on a bit of weight but he didn't want to blow up like a balloon. He needed something to balance it out…to slow the weight gain. The most important thing to do was hold his food down.

Right now, he was purging every solid thing he ate. "Alright…I wont purge at work." He thought. That was a problem that really needed to be taken care of . It was dangerous enough to be shooting up dilaudid at work, but purging there too was just asking for trouble, even though he had mastered "The art of the silent puke" He snickered a little at that moniker, even though that was revolting "Maybe I should make use of that blender…There are still some fruits in the fridge" he thought.

When he got up the next morning, he put on a pot of coffee, and determined to eat breakfast, he pulled out an apple from the refrigerator. He thought about it for a moment, then replaced the apple in the fridge with a yogurt. "It'll come up easier" he thought. The idea was to eat more than usual, but purge less. He allowed himself the yogurt, took his shower and got dressed, determined to keep it down, at least for a little while, to absorb some of the calories. It wasn't until half way through the container of yogurt that he remembered how dairy will curdle in your stomach if you don't get it out fast enough. Quickly, he dropped the container into the trash, ran to the bathroom and stuck his middle finger down his throat.

It turns out that Dr. Reid picked an excellent day to stop purging at work. The girls had congregated in the break room that morning, forming their own "what the hell is wrong with Reid" task force. In their hushed voices, they all decided it would be best to be as discreet as possible and as gentle as they could with Reid. They would be ever vigilant to see if anything was wrong.

Reid sat down at his desk and sifted through his paper work, Hotch occasionally coming over to ask questions about what he was doing and of course, to hand him more files. Did this paperwork ever end? When lunch time finally arrived, Reid got up and took the salad he had packed into the break room. Sitting down at the table, he opened the plastic container, setting the lid on the table. He looked into the salad. "I will keep you down." He told it silently, as he picked up his fork. With every slow bite he took he thought "I will keep this down" But once it was all gone and he could feel it in his stomach

He made a bee line for the bathroom. There was still about ten minutes left in his lunch break.

"He was in an awful hurry to get to the bathroom after he ate" JJ observed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Maybe he has a stomach bug?" Emily suggested.

"I'll go see if Hotch will go see what's going on" JJ said, heading towards Hotch's office.

"Yes JJ?" Aaron enquired, looking up at her from his work.

"I think Reid is sick. He practically ran to the bathroom after he ate" She said.

"Send him to me next time you see him" Hotch sighed. What was so hard about calling in sick for Reid? The kid knew every word in the dictionary, but when you put the words "Day " and "Off" together he just couldn't grasp it.

Reid slipped out of the bathroom and back to his desk. "So much for keeping lunch down" he thought, burying his face in his hands for a moment. When he looked up JJ was standing in front of him.  
"Hotch wants you in his office" She said.

"Shit shit shit shit shit!" Reid thought, getting up. His legs still felt a little shaky as he approached Hotch's office.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked, entering the large, comfortable office.

"Reid, Some of the other team members were thinking that you're not feeling well, are you ok?" Hotch asked.

"Yeah just a little upset stomach" Reid said.

"I want you to take the rest of the day off, alright? You look really pale." Hotch stated.

Reid nodded and turned around to go back to his desk.

He collected his files and put them all into his messenger bag, saying goodbye to Penelope and Morgan before he walked out the door.

Sighing, his legs felt like gelatin as he walked through the parking garage to his car. Purging at work needed to end before Hotch or anybody else caught on.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own criminal minds or any of the aforementioned characters. This story may be triggering to those with eating disorders/self harm problems or drug issues. You've all been warned.

JJ drove to Reid's apartment after work, holding the Tupperware container that Reid had forgotten at his desk when he left. He had left in such a hurry after coming out of Hotch's office.

She had tried to discreetly watch him eat with Emily and Garcia, noticing the way he picked at his food. The container in the passenger's seat was still half full with salad, a fork sitting on top of wilted leaves of lettuce. They had chalked it up to a stomach flu and decided it was probably a good idea to just table their investigation for the time being. Emily voted that JJ go and drop the container off, as well as check on Reid.

She knocked on the door. There was no answer. Of course, her and Spencer were best friends, so if she just checked the door to see if it was un locked, he wouldn't mind, right? Slowly, she turned the door knob and pushed. The door inched open and she looked inside. The apartment was a little bit messy, but the apartment of any young single man would normally be a little messy. Cardigans were thrown about over chairs, books lay in disorderly heaps.

She went into the kitchen, setting the container in the sink and continuing her search for the brilliant doctor. A bedroom door was open and there was a loud humming coming from behind it. Pushing this door open farther, she found Reid, laying in a mass of cushions in his pajamas. The hum was coming from a space heater. The room was absolutely scorching, but Reid was laying there in winter pajama pants and a hoodie, which had crept up a bit, exposing part of his torso.

Despite the sweltering heat, JJ approached the bed to examine the sleeping boy. What she saw was horrifying but not surprising. From the bit of Reid that was exposed JJ could tell that he was absolutely emaciated. Her heart sunk to the pit of her stomach when she saw the hip bones. She was absolutely terrified to touch Reid but had to get a better look. His sweat shirt was loose enough, so she carefully pulled it up a bit, his stomach was concave. Moving the fabric up a little farther, she saw every single rib. Nausea filled her stomach as panic filled her brain.

Covering her mouth with her hand, she scurried out of the apartment, not sure if what she had just seen was real or not. She got into her car and moved it around to the other side of the apartment complex, incase Reid woke up and decided to look out of his window. Shaking, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Garcia.

"Penelope?" She implored.

"Yeah?" The other blonde replied.

"Is Emily still there with you?" JJ asked, her tone shaking

"Yeah, she's still here, is everything alright?" Garcia asked, furrowing her brow.

Garcia put the phone on speaker. They were alone in Penelope's closed office.

"Meet me at the coffee shop down the street from you guys. I can't talk about this over the phone when anyone can walk in any time. If Hotch gets wind of this, he'll go insane"

Emily and Garcia were waiting impatiently at a table in the coffee shop for JJ, who was a bit further away.

"What did you see?" Emily asked, her eyes were wide with concern.

"He was in his bed…with all of these pillows and this space heater but you could see part of his torso…God guys , his stomach is concave. I couldn't resist…So I lifted his shirt a little more…You can see every single rib, it was absolutely terrifying, he's completely emaciated." JJ looked as though she was about to cry.

Garcia stared down at the table, her glossed mouth agape. "Do you think hes…doing that to himself?" Penelope whimpered. The trio couldn't rule out the possibility of Reid being on drugs, they certainly didn't want to jump to the conclusion that Reid was anorexic.

Spencer awoke slowly; it was half past six in the evening. Had he really been asleep for six hours? His whole body felt stiff and his bones cracked as he got up and stretched. A rumbling in his stomach sounded out after the popping in his bones ceased. He wandered out to the kitchen after turning off his heater, he wanted some water desperately. Filling up a glass in the sink, he chugged it down, relieving his dried out mouth. Something caught his eye in the sink though.

It had occurred to Doctor Reid as soon as he got in the front door that he had left his lunch container at work, and feeling apathetic towards it and assuming someone would leave it somewhere like his desk, he didn't concern himself with it. But how had it gotten home? Someone had to have been in the apartment while he was sleeping. Panic overtook him as he looked around the apartment. It had to be a team member. Nobody was there.

He contemplated picking up his phone and calling Emily or JJ but he thought better of it, returning to the kitchen for another glass of water and to examine the contents of the fridge again.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

ATTENTION EVERBODY: I'm moving. You can find me on Under the name DarlingCera . I'm still going to post things here though, but any new stories and stuff and the impending "Breaking Walls" rewrite will all be there.

A plan of attack needed to be devised. Unfortunately if it came down to directly confronting Reid about his issue, JJ would have to be the one to do it. When Reid walked into the office the next morning, he didn't appear to be perturbed. He was calm, walking in and sitting at his desk with a mug of coffee and a donut, which he bit into.

Becoming inconspicuous was more important now than ever. He didn't know what JJ had seen. She could have seen anything from the massive amount of wrappers and such that had accumulated in his apartment to his hip bones protruding when his shirt slid up his torso in his sleep. He began to chew his bite of donut. The starchy sugary substance felt like sweet glue on his tongue. Repulsive but at the same time delectable. Before all of this started, Reid would be the first to admit that he had a major sweet tooth. That was originally why Halloween was his favorite holiday. Photo albums in his living room were loaded with pictures of him as an adorable, chubby child dressed in typical costumes, stuffing sweets into his mouth. His favorite costume was the one his mother made for him when he was five. He remembered her sticking the fake moustache to him and mussing up his hair while she loaded it down with baby powder to turn it white. Reid had been the cutest Albert Einstein that had ever trick-or-treated. She still commended him on being the world's cutest genius whenever he went to visit.

Continuing to take normal-sized bites of his donut, Reid thought about where all of this business had started, and why he couldn't just eat the damn donut like anyone else. Food wasn't around as often as it should have been when he was a kid. It was also a source of arguments between his parents. From what Reid could gather from those arguments, Reid's father couldn't cook and his mother was too damn lazy to do it . Spencer made his first peanut butter and jelly sandwich at five years old with a plastic knife and two slices of wonder bread because his mother couldn't get up and do it for him, like most mothers did for their little boys and girls. He'd just never had the appetite that other boys had.

Really, anorexia was about need for Spencer. He didn't want to need. He wanted to think of the quote form a book on the subject he had read , but he couldn't recall it. He felt his mind going a little. The sugar from the donut was getting to him, as well as all the sugar and caffeine from the coffee.

"Hey. I dropped off your Tupperware last night" JJ said, sitting on his desk.

"That was you? Thanks" He replied.

"Yeah, your door was open so I just came on in" JJ smiled a little.

Reid was eating. That was good. He looked alright. She even entertained the idea of dropping the subject. But one donut wasn't going to be enough to make those ribs disappear.

Over the next few weeks, Reid dropped five more pounds. His pants were loose. He saw people looking. He didn't care. "Maybe I'm finally losing my shit." He thought, the fact that he couldn't care less about what people were thinking of him concerned him greatly.

JJ, Emily and Garcia were really beginning to grow concerned. They were also getting a bit fed up with Reid too. His attitude hadn't been what it once was. He was no longer the playful, sweet boy genius he'd once been. Now he was a sunken, irritable shell of himself.

It was Emily who first proposed the idea of telling Morgan.

Penelope wanted to go straight to Hotch or Rossi.

JJ was beside herself; not thinking either of those options was a good idea.

Finally JJ decided she would have to be the one to confront Reid. She cornered him once everyone had left for the evening and Hotch had holed himself up in his office.

"Spence." She began, pulling up another rolling desk chair and sitting next to Reid at his desk. "Mother of fuck…" Reid thought as he took out some files and began to work them.

"I need you to listen to me, Spencer." JJ said "I know what's going on. When I dropped the container off in your apartment, I went into your room, just to check on you and…Gosh, Spence you've gotten so thin...How much weight have you lost?"

Spencer pretended not to hear her.

"Please, Spence, just hear me out alright? You're too valuable to the team, we all love you to pieces. You're worrying all of us. " JJ continued.

Spencer let out a dramatic sigh.

"It's none of your business, Jennifer." Reid snapped, snatching up the files off of his desk and heading for the door.

"Spence! Spencer wait!" JJ called after him.

"Screw it. Screw it all." She said to herself. JJ marched purposefully up the steps to Hotch's office , pounding her fist on the door.

Hotch had already gotten up from his desk when he heard JJ calling out for Reid. "What's going on?" He asked.

"We need to have a talk about Reid." She said, pursing her lips and pushing past Hotch into his office.

She recounted the story of the Tupperware container and showed him the picture on her phone. She pointed out the changes she and the others had seen in Reid.

Hotch held JJ's phone in his hand and continued to stare in awe at the photo. "Wow." He said, handing the phone over . He was dumbstruck, clueless as to what he was supposed to do in this situation. It took Aaron a moment to gather his thoughts. "We're going to have to involve Strauss." He sighed. "As much as I don't want to we're going to have to involve her and Reid is going to have to get a psych evaluation." He shook his head, unable to believe that he'd gone around so long not noticing the signs.


End file.
